Jade Flute hummed a tune as they walked. Sky Knife didn’t look back at her, but her voice was enough to make him flush hot and cold. His knees felt weak. What was it about this woman that made him feel this way? Sky Knife cursed the fact she’d be taken from him at dawn. He’d never have a chance to find out more about her.
The fields to the south of Tikal were dry, only the brown stubble of the corn stalks remaining this long after the harvest. Burned trunks of dead trees poked up out of the earth of the milpa. Bright green weeds and the hardy achiote, a small shrub, dotted the otherwise brown fields. All around the milpa, just outside the brush fence that surrounded it, the trees of the forest crowded as if waiting for a chance to capture the fields from the farmers.
Several houses sat in a cleared area, a low stone wall marking the boundary between civilization and jungle. Inside the wall, between the houses, were several hollow logs. The friendly colecab buzzed around them, intent on their honey. Manos and metates sat by the houses, unused.
The houses had been made in the traditional chuyche style: poles had been set in the ground and bound together with the sturdy anicab vine. Thatch formed a pointed, rainproof roof. Sky Knife had grown up in such a house. They were mustier and draftier than stone buildings, but they were more familiar. Sky Knife felt a pang of homesickness and realized how much he missed living with his family. A house like this was meant for families, for children and laughter.
Sky Knife stepped up to the nearest house and brushed away a curious colecab. “Hello?” he called out.
A breeze rustled the thatch of the house roof, but no other sound came from the area.
“Where is everyone?” asked Bone Splinter. “Have the peasants fled the bad luck like the merchants?”
Doubt gnawed at Sky Knife. “I don’t think so,” he said. “A merchant is free to walk away from a city, but a farmer would not leave his land. My father wouldn’t have.”
“Well, they’re not here.”
Sky Knife stepped up into one of the houses. The interior was dark; no fire had been laid in the firepit in the center of the one-room structure. A drying rack leaned against a wall, one strip of meat still clinging to it. The meat strip was dry and old. Sky Knife looked up over the rim of the peten, the flat plate woven from the anicab vine. Fruit and spices were piled on the peten to keep it from rats. The fruit was wrinkled and overripe.
Sky Knife knelt by the firepit in the center of the room. A few half-consumed sticks lay at the bottom, along with a small pile of ash. Sky Knife touched the ashes. They were cold.
Nothing seemed out of order. The family’s possessions were stacked along the walls neatly or hung from the rafters overhead on other peten or were strapped to the rafters by vines. The pungent smell of crushed chiles hung in the air.
Sky Knife got up and walked back outside.
Bone Splinter emerged from another house. A few of the friendly bees encircled him. The warrior ignored them. “No one lived here,” he said. “And there’s a pile of overturned dirt on the floor. Probably where they lived before the house you were in.”
Sky Knife nodded. It was customary for peasants to bury their dead underneath their houses, but few families chose to live in a house where someone had been buried. Some thought it was unlucky, though not everyone believed that.
“Oh, look,” said Jade Flute. She knelt down in a corner of the dirt yard. Sky Knife walked over to see what had caught her eye.
A simple cornhusk doll lay crumpled in the dirt. Jade Flute picked it up gingerly, but the dried husk was too fragile. It disintegrated in her hands and drifted back down to earth in tiny fragments.
“I used to play with one just like that,” said Jade Flute. “I never thought that the peasant girls did the same things I did. I never thought about them at all.”
“It looks like they’ve been gone a while,” said Sky Knife, “which can’t be, or we’d have heard rumors of it before now. Besides, if this house had been deserted for any length of time, the jungle would have crept up around it.”
Jade Flute continued to stare at the remains of the doll. “I wonder who she was,” she said.
“What?” asked Bone Splinter.
“The girl who loved this doll,” said Jade Flute. “I wonder where she is now.”
“I wish I knew,” said Sky Knife. He walked around the rest of the cleared lot. Manos and metates sat squarely in place, their surfaces worn smooth from extended use. A cracked pot lay discarded on the far side of the house.
“Well,” said Sky Knife, “let’s check some other places. Surely the peasants can’t all be gone.”
Sky Knife set off farther south. A larger group of houses sat at the far side of a wide milpa.
“Ugh,” said Jade Flute. “Worms.”
Sky Knife turned to her. Large, green grubs wiggled blindly in the milpa. Sky Knife shuddered in disgust.
“Perhaps the peasants are fleeing the worms,” said Bone Splinter.
“Or maybe the worms are more bad luck,” said Sky Knife. “Perhaps they were brought here by sorcery to destroy the fields of Tikal. Perhaps someone wishes to starve the city.”
“My bet is Red Spider,” said Bone Splinter. “He could have done this days ago, a week ago, and no one would have noticed. No one of consequence comes out here.”
“What about Nine Dog?” asked Sky Knife. His shoulder tingled where Nine Dog’s blade had struck and he shivered slightly. “He did try to kill me. He may be part of the conspiracy.”
“Assuming there’s a conspiracy at all,” said Jade Flute. “Who is Nine Dog?”
“A merchant from Monte Alban,” said Bone Splinter, “who has already left the city if he knows what’s good for him.”
“Why would someone from Monte Alban bring us bad luck?” asked Jade Flute. She grimaced in disgust as one of the worms wriggled near her foot. She stomped on it. She picked up her foot and wiped the bottom of her sandal on a clod of sun-dried dirt. Only a blob of green and yellow liquid remained of the worm.
“I don’t know,” said Sky Knife. “They have different customs, different gods. And Monte Alban is so far away.”
“Not nearly as far as Teotihuacan,” said Bone Splinter. “And they are always looking for a chance to expand their control. Red Spider is a better bet.”
Sky Knife set off again toward the next group of houses. “Hello!” he called as he approached. The angry squawking of some monkeys in the trees was his only answer.
Sky Knife wiped sweat from his face and stepped into the caanche, the small kitchen garden by the house. The plants in the garden were wilted and the soil cracked and hard.
“No one here, either?” asked Bone Splinter.
“It’s so sad,” said Jade Flute. “All the houses empty, without people, without children playing.”
Sky Knife turned to go.
“Wait!” shouted someone from the house.
Sky Knife jumped. Bone Splinter pushed Sky Knife behind him.
“Who’s there?” asked Bone Splinter.
“Where did everyone go?” A short, old woman with more skin than flesh hobbled to the doorway of the house. Her sparse white hair stuck out from her head at odd angles. She blinked in the sunlight.
“Tell me where they went, Lord,” she said to Bone Splinter. “I want to go with them.”
Bone Splinter glanced back at Sky Knife. Sky Knife took a deep breath.
“Let us come inside,” he said, “and we’ll talk about what happened.”
The old woman seemed not to have heard. Tears rolled down her face. “Maybe they’ll forgive me,” she said. “Do you think they’ll forgive me?”
“Forgive you—for what transgression?” asked Sky Knife.
“I disobeyed the gods,” said the woman. “I betrayed the people.” She walked back into the house. “It’s all my fault,” she said. “Do you think they’ll forgive me?”
“Of course they will,” said Sky Knife. He walked around Bone Splinter and followed the old woman into the ho
use.
24
“It happened at least a uinal ago,” said the old woman. She sat on a thatch mat on one side of the cold firepit in the center of the house. Bone Splinter, Sky Knife, and Jade Flute also sat by the firepit.
“Twenty days,” mused Bone Splinter. “That’s time enough to plan any sort of sorcery.”
“But what was it that happened?” asked Sky Knife.
“A vision,” sighed the old woman. “Ah Mun came to each of the men in the night and told them he needed their services in his own milpas. And so the men went to serve him. The next night, Ah Mun came in our dreams again and told us women we should go, too. And take our children with us. He said we were needed in the fields of the gods.”
“Then why didn’t you go?” asked Bone Splinter.
The old woman put her hands over her face. “I have failed him,” she said. “Our beloved Ah Mun, the soul of the corn, the giver of bounty!”
Jade Flute reached out and gently took the woman’s hands down. “How did you fail him?” she asked.
“I was too proud,” sobbed the woman. “I said I was too old to work in Ah Mun’s fields, that he should not expect me to serve him when there were so many younger hands to help. I was wrong! If Ah Mun finds me worthy, who am I to refuse him?” The woman grasped Jade Flute’s wrists. “Tell him I am ready! Tell him I’ll come if he’ll forgive me. I have fasted and offered blood every night since the rest of the women left, but I have received no vision. Tell him I’m ready!”
A strange look crossed Jade Flute’s face. She sat up very straight. “I will tell him,” she said. “When I see him tomorrow, I shall ask him to forgive you before I ask for anything else from the rest of the gods.”
The cold tone in Jade Flute’s voice sent shivers up Sky Knife’s spine. Jade Flute sounded as if she had not only resigned herself, but accepted her place as a sacrifice. If she accepted her duty voluntarily, she would be more powerful in her death than any bad luck plaguing Tikal.
The old woman sighed and slumped down. “Thank you, child,” she said.
“And so everyone left about twenty days ago?” asked Sky Knife. “All together and all at once?”
“No,” said the woman. “I have seen others go by since. I think Ah Mun is calling the farmers to him one family at a time.”
“So they have left the fields in small groups, first the men, then the women,” said Bone Splinter. “And gone where?”
“East,” said the woman. “In the vision, Ah Mun said to go east. A guide would meet us and take us to the fields of the gods.”
“And when was the last time you noticed people walking by here?” asked Sky Knife.
“Just yesterday,” said the woman. “But today I have seen no one but you.”
Sky Knife looked at Bone Splinter and found agreement in the other man’s eyes. “East,” he said. “We’d better go take a look.”
“Oh,” said Jade Flute. She reached for the old woman, who had slumped over onto the floor.
Sky Knife jumped up and went to the old woman’s side. Her breathing was fast and shallow.
“Tell him … tell him I’m ready,” the old woman sighed. Then she let out her breath and didn’t catch it again.
“No,” said Jade Flute. “Don’t die.”
“She said she had fasted for twenty days, and had offered blood every night,” said Sky Knife. “Perhaps Ah Mun has forgiven her and finally taken her himself, since she was too weak to walk.”
“You don’t believe that the corn god is actually calling the peasants away?” asked Bone Splinter. “I might believe it if he had called one or two especially worthy people, but all the farmers? And their entire families, too?”
“Whatever happened to the others, at least this woman was faithful to Ah Mun at the end,” said Sky Knife. “The others may have been misled, but that doesn’t mean this woman wasn’t found worthy.”
“Should we bury her?” asked Jade Flute.
“We don’t have the time,” said Bone Splinter.
“We have to have the time,” said Sky Knife. “This woman deserves a burial at least. There ought to be some hoes around here, unless the farmers took all their tools with them.”
Bone Splinter stood. “I’ll look. We’ll have to do this quickly. Midday is already here and we have work to do.”
While Bone Splinter was gone, Sky Knife and Jade Flute wrapped the old woman in a cotton blanket.
“We should bury her with something,” said Jade Flute. She untied her shell bead choker and placed it inside the blanket.
The light of the sun was temporarily blotted out as Bone Splinter entered the doorway. “Here,” he said. He handed a hoe to Sky Knife.
Bone Splinter struck the ground with the hoe and turned up a clod of dirt. Sky Knife did the same. Soon, they had dug a shallow trench.
A third hoe struck the ground. Sky Knife glanced up in surprise. Jade Flute looked back at him. “Well, Bone Splinter didn’t bring me one,” she said. “I had to go find my own.”
“You’re going to dig?” asked Bone Splinter.
“Why not?” asked Jade Flute. “The old woman died right beside me. It only seems right to help bury her.”
“Have you ever used a hoe before?”
“Have you?”
Bone Splinter closed his mouth and said nothing. He went back to his digging. Between the three of them, the hole was completed quickly. Bone Splinter and Sky Knife lifted each end of the cotton blanket and lowered the woman into the ground. Filling in the hole took very little time.
“Come on,” said Bone Splinter when the last clod of dirt had been thrown onto the mound that marked the grave.
“I’m thirsty,” said Jade Flute.
Sky Knife nodded. “We need to find some water, especially since we’re not going back to Tikal just yet.”
“There are water jugs in back of the house,” said Bone Splinter.
Bone Splinter led the other two to the water jugs. The jugs had been made from gourds. They were tied to the poles that formed the back wall of the house. Two of them contained water. No doubt the old woman had consumed the rest during the last uinal.
The nagual waited patiently inside the caanche for them to finish. Sky Knife approached his coati and petted its wiry fur. A dead brown lizard lay at the coati’s feet. The coati nosed the lizard, then stared into Sky Knife’s eyes with a sadness Sky Knife didn’t understand.
“What is it?” asked Jade Flute. Her ocelot bounded over to her.
“A dead lizard.”
“It must be the old woman’s nagual,” said Jade Flute. “We should have buried it with her, but I didn’t think about it.”
Sky Knife thought he understood the coati’s sadness now. Perhaps the two animals had known each other when they had lived under the protection of the Totilme’iletik. He petted the coati again.
“We need to go,” Sky Knife said.
Jade Flute picked up the lizard and took it inside the house. She came back almost immediately.
Sky Knife set off toward the east. The nagual animals followed the people eastward.
Sky Knife led the others across milpa after milpa. They encountered more green worms in the fields, but no people.
By mid-afternoon, Sky Knife was tired and angry. In the weed-choked fields, it was impossible to tell whether anyone had even come this way. No weeds seemed bent or stomped down.
“Let’s rest,” said Jade Flute, “and start back. I haven’t noticed anything unusual besides the worms—have you?”
“No,” said Sky Knife, “but I’m not giving up yet.” He looked around for a place to rest. Somewhere away from the fields and the squirming grubs.
“There,” he said, pointing to a tall stand of trees just ahead. “Among the trees.”
They pushed on. The trees were dense, but broken branches on the meager undergrowth showed someone had been here before. A path had been worn between the trees, and all the plants in the way had been trampled.
“Let me
go first,” said Bone Splinter. He shouldered on ahead. Sky Knife followed him. Jade Flute and the spirit animals came behind.
The path wound between the trees for nearly a hundred yards, as nearly as Sky Knife could figure. This deep in the jungle, the sounds of the birds and monkeys should have filled his ears, but only the crackling of the dying plants at their feet could be heard.
“Where are all the animals?” he asked no one in particular.
Suddenly, Bone Splinter stopped dead in his tracks.
“What?” asked Sky Knife.
“Take a look.” Bone Splinter stepped aside. “But be careful.”
Sky Knife took a small step forward. Through the branches of a shrub, he saw a deep hole in the ground—a cenote! Sky Knife parted the branches. Water glistened at the bottom of the circular hole. The steep limestone sides were bare of anything but the merest bushes. Sky Knife realized the bush he touched was actually rooted in the side of the cenote rather than the surface around it. He stepped back quickly, afraid the rim might give way beneath his feet.
“What is it?” asked Jade Flute. “Let me see.” She pushed her way up to stand beside Sky Knife.
“An entrance to the underworld,” said Sky Knife. “Perhaps the old woman was right. Maybe Ah Mun called the farmers here and took them from the cenote to his fields.”
“And maybe there are just a lot of dead farmers at the bottom of the cenote,” said Bone Splinter. “Only a proper sacrifice can die in a cenote and petition the rain gods. I doubt the farmers qualify.”
“Do you suppose they just came here and jumped in?” asked Jade Flute. “Why?”
“The path ends here,” said Bone Splinter. “Or, rather, here.” He stood aside. Just to the right of the bush Sky Knife had held was a gap in the shrubbery that edged the rim of the cenote. Bone Splinter leaned over the edge and stared at the water.
“The water is very blue,” he said. “I would think, with hundreds of dead farmers at the bottom, it would be fouled.”
“Maybe they’re not here at all,” said Sky Knife. “Or maybe this is where they met their guide, and they turned around and walked out of the jungle.”
Sky Knife Page 17
